When they are done (“Did the old king make you come like that?”), they begin conspiring. Viewers who went for “arousal” in that opening bereavement sweepstake can collect their winnings when we see Catherine enjoying a naked celebration with Thomas Seymour, the brother of her late husband’s third wife.
What Becoming Elizabeth has that Succession largely doesn’t is an acknowledgment of sex as an instrument of power and power as a provider of quasi-sexual thrills. Although the Logan Roy figure is missing, here is another clan who see loyalty as a weakness to be probed for personal gain. If you need a hint, well, the show is about a succession. Take away the period trappings and there is an obvious point of comparison. A power struggle that will involve all three half-siblings, and their stepmother, Catherine, has begun. Immediately, Edward is ushered away by his uncle, the Duke of Somerset, who seats the kid at the head of a governing council, but appoints himself lord protector. While a group of unlucky footmen heave Henry’s heavy coffin, we are introduced to the king’s surviving children, who, we are reminded, all had different mothers: Mary, the eldest Elizabeth, a teenager and Edward, the male heir, but merely a child.
